


to put out the pain

by grossly



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kind of angsty, M/M, Tokyo (City), shotgunning in one scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 04:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10236305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grossly/pseuds/grossly
Summary: Tobio wants to tell Sugawara all the words he’s never heard, all the words he’s ever wanted.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiddolane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiddolane/gifts).



> inspired by fei's fantasy mv and then it kinda like grew wings of its own except the wings are kinda stumpy because i thought i could juggle 2 events at the same time along with irl responsibilities and ended up doing a shoddy job im sorry. im stubborn.

In the day, the outskirts of Roppongi are like a ghost town. The residents have all vacated in hopes of a better life somewhere else in Greater Tokyo. The yakuza do not move, and neither do the biker gangs.

The streets reek of dread and fear and the tang of stale blood. Save for the thick smog billowing from the towering chimneys in the busier districts, everything is still. A thin layer of dust settles in the air. The moon, old and broken beyond repair, peeks out from the horizon, ashamed.

At night, it couldn’t be any more different.

The buildings light up with fluorescent lights, like a sky of their own. Motorcycles roar down the roads, a herd of stampeding elephants. Burly men embellished with vibrant tattoos and baseball bats and guns and knives prowl the streets, snatching prostitutes and beggars and other gangs up like cookies straight from the oven. Everything comes to life.

Tobio’s favourite time of the day is in between.

 

 

The man stands there, unwavering, like a single ray of moonlight against the darker than black sky, like back when something as magical as _Clair de Lune_ could still be taken for granted.

He is painted with the oversaturated neon of street signs and blinking lights, and he wears them beautifully, like scarves of soft wool and spider silk and one hundred percent cotton. His silver-grey hair sits soft and unassuming, standing out in the crowd in its own way. His skin is pale and unmarred, save for the mole in the corner of his eye and fiery feathers trailing out his armpit.

“Hello,” he says pleasantly, his voice smooth like running water, the edges of his lips curling up into a slight smile. “I’m here for the fantasy.”

Tobio blinks himself out of his stupor. When the man speaks, the loud smack of leather against panels of glossy hardwood rings in Tobio’s ears.

“R-right,” Tobio says. “Follow me.”

Tobio leads the man down grimy cement steps into the building. They stop at a rickety wooden door, where Kindaichi stands guard. Tobio ducks his head as Kindaichi pats the man down, then unlatches the door to let them in.

From his peripheral vision, Tobio catches the man shooting a polite smile at Kindaichi. Kindaichi’s eyebrows furrow, and he does not smile back.

“Not a very friendly bunch, huh,” the man remarks as they walk down the dimly-lit hallway, his shoulder bumping against Tobio’s a tad too many times to be a mere coincidence. Tobio, for his life, can’t figure out why.

They walk through a doorway into a sparsely-decorated room, where Tobio sits the man down and straps a headset over his eyes.

“I’m Sugawara,” the man says. “Call me Suga.”

The fantasy begins.

 

 

“Have you ever tried it before?” Sugawara asks casually, as if he were asking Tobio what he had for dinner the previous day. “The VR sex.”

The argon lights are making Tobio kind of woozy. He can feel his shirt sticking onto his back from the sweat, and it’s pretty disgusting. Sugawara is comfortably settled in between his splayed-open legs, smoking from a depleted pack of Golden Bat. Tobio hasn’t seen one since his grandfather was alive.

“Um. Yeah,” Tobio manages to slur out. He turns away, trying not to look at the sweat pooling in Sugawara’s collarbones. “When I. First. It was good.”

Sugawara hums. He takes another slow drag, before placing his hand on Tobio’s cheek and turning Tobio’s head back to face him. Sugawara slots his lips against Tobio’s, and exhales. Through his hazy vision, Tobio thinks he catches a glimpse of the lifelessness of the city in Sugawara’s half-lidded eyes.

Tobio doesn’t know what he’s drunk on, but he wants to blame this on inebriation, on a drunken stupor.

He raises right his hand, slowly, slowly, until it catches onto the locks of Sugawara’s moon hair. And then, in downward motions, he strokes. Gently, gently. He inhales the scent of the shampoo everyone in the neighbourhood uses, from the rations store three blocks away from his apartment.

Sugawara is staring straight into Tobio’s eyes, the cigarette dangling from his index and middle fingers. He is donning a non-smile for the first time this night. Tobio thinks it feels the most natural, like a face bare of makeup, like twenty-four carat gold.

Somehow, for some reason he just can’t explain, he wants to tell Sugawara all the words he’s never heard, all the words he’s ever wanted.

 

 

“I think I might be crazy,” Sugawara says, grinning at Tobio. They’re sitting under the porch of the sole neutral ramen place in Roppongi, without a territory. Water droplets drum overhead on the canvas shade. It hasn’t rained since Tobio was five. “You’re Seijou’s. And I’m from Karasuno.”

“Then I probably am as well,” Tobio mutters. There is no one inside the ramen shop other than the pudding-headed waiter, curled up in the corner most booth, tapping absentmindedly on his phone. Tobio thinks he could trust the waiter. They are outside the shop.

“Kageyama,” Sugawara says, and Tobio doesn’t recall ever telling Sugawara his name. “You’re like a breath of fresh air.”

“Um,” Tobio doesn’t know how to respond. “Thanks.”

Sugawara turns to look at Tobio with a twinkle in his eye, like the crinkle of aluminium foil or sparkly plastic diamonds. It makes Tobio’s gut coil, makes him want to look away. He catches the pudding-headed waiter’s eyes, and feels as if his mind is being read.

“We’re dead if anyone sees us,” Sugawara muses absentmindedly. “It’s sort of thrilling.”

 

 

One night, Sugawara shows up at the entrance of Tobio’s dingy one-room apartment, clad in leather boots and fingerless gloves and windswept hair like ocean waves. He looks the most relaxed he’s been in a long while.

“Helmet,” Tobio blurts as he stumbles down the alleyway stairs, careful to keep away from the wads if gum littered at the corners. “You’re not, um. Wearing. That’s not safe.”

Sugawara laughs, and it feels like sunlight, like homesickness for a place, a _person_ Tobio’s never had.

“It’s for you,” Sugawara says, with a twinkle in his eyes. Tobio thinks, _this must be how the Milky Way looks like_. Sugawara tosses the helmet, sleek black with two white stripes running down the sides, to Tobio. “Let’s go for a ride, shall we?”

“Where to?” Tobio hears himself asking as he climbs onto the motorcycle. He hesitates, before gingerly placing his hands on Sugawara’s sides. Sugawara grabs Tobio’s hands and pulls them forward until they’re wrapped around his waist, until Tobio is pressed against his back.

“Don’t let go,” Sugawara simply says, and they take off into the dusty night.

 

 

“Aren’t you cold?” Tobio asks. The darkness fades off into a pale pink, and the dusty, broken moon looms over them from the horizon.

“I don’t deserve warmth,” Sugawara says, with a hollow chuckle, leaning back against the old telephone booth behind them. Sometimes, Tobio doesn’t like it when Sugawara laughs. “Why, are you cold? I can warm you up.”

The steps to Sugawara’s dances come surprisingly natural to Tobio. Waltz, tango, cha-cha. One, two, three. One, two, three. _Clair de Lune_ , he thinks. “It goes both ways, Suga-san.”

Sugawara chuckles again, the tips of his fingers brushing against the folds of Tobio’s denim jacket. “Huh. I suppose it does, Kageyama.”

Tobio tracks the movement with his eyes, taking in the old, rough calluses on Sugawara’s fingertips, and takes a chance. He guides Sugawara’s head onto his shoulder, and shifts closer to Sugawara’s body. He can feel the wistful smile in his palm, from the slight stretch of Sugawara’s cheek. The buttons on the sleeve Tobio’s jacket clack against the glass of the telephone booth.

“It’s okay not to smile, or to laugh,” Tobio declares a little gruffly, ducking his head to hide the blush high on his cheeks. “And it’s okay to cry.”

“I’m a really ugly crier, you know,” Sugawara warns, burying his face into the crook of Tobio’s neck. Sugawara’s hair smells like the slightly more expensive scented shampoo from the rations store three blocks away from his apartment. It’s strangely endearing.

“You don’t have to be beautiful,” Tobio says. He feels as if he’s about to cry as well. There’s a lump in his throat and he can’t make it go away. He squeezes his eyes shut, squeezes Sugawara tight. “You’re enough.”

The tears soaking through Tobio’s jacket feel warm. Human.

 

 

Tobio dreams in colour.

Sugawara appears amidst mist, a cool haze, ethereal and glowing. Tobio reaches out his right hand, and gently caresses Sugawara’s cheek, his mole, with the pad of his thumb. Sugawara smiles, enigmatic, and holds Tobio’s hand in place, leaning into his touch.

Tobio takes a step forward, and then they are falling into the clearest water he has ever seen. Sugawara smiles, and mouths something to Tobio. Bubbles gush out of his mouth. Tobio thinks it was something like, _have you ever loved someone to death?_

Then they light up, still in the water, and burn. It is more than fast, more than painful, and more vivid than any heartbreak Tobio has ever felt. He wakes up with the taste of ash in his mouth and smoke in his eyes.

Tobio dreams in colour, but Sugawara—Sugawara is his own _monochrome_.

 

 

“He’s broken,” the pudding-headed waiter mutters, as he hands Tobio a bowl of piping hot ramen. There’s too little chashu, as usual, and the noodles are already soggy. Through the steam, Tobio stares at the puddles of red-orange oil splattered across the surface of the broth. “He can’t be fixed.”

The pudding-headed waiter’s eyes are of the same twenty-four carat gold as Sugawara’s non-smile, and more; like crystal-clear springs, like endless abysses. Like the sun. Tobio thinks of Sugawara’s soft hair, and the dusty, broken moon peeking out from the horizon.

When Tobio finishes his meal, he slides four rusty coins across the wooden counter and tells the pudding-headed waiter, “I’m stubborn.”

 

 

“The scorching August sun,” Sugawara muses, and Tobio can almost feel the heat on his face. “You’ll feel sticky all over, like a melted soda pop. The cool, fleeting breeze, like an oasis in the desert. The swaying stalks of grass, the tinkling wind chimes, like the beautiful dances during a bonfire feast. Playing in the stream was like floating in the clouds.”

“I want to see,” Tobio lets himself admit, because it’s Sugawara, and no one else.

“Come on then,” Sugawara says, getting onto his bike. “I’ll take you there.”

Tobio scrambles to his feet. “Right now?”

“It’s a good time as ever,” Sugawara says with a shrug, and the corners of his lips raised slightly. He reaches a hand out to Tobio. Tobio stares at Sugawara’s outstretched hand, remembering the curves and bends, each wrinkle and callus. He furrows his eyebrows and looks away, falling silent. “Are you coming?”

There is a pained expression on Tobio’s face. “Please don’t run away, Suga-san.”

The smile on Sugawara’s lips falters. Tobio watches as Sugawara’s hand slowly lowers, until it rests at the side of his body. He gets off his bike, and takes a breath. He laughs, a bitter laugh.

“Why.” Sugawara breathes deeply, clutching his chest. In, out. In, out. “You don’t know me. You don’t know me at all. And yet—and yet—”

“Please don’t run away,” Tobio repeats, his voice trembling more and more with each word he speaks. “I—I’ll say it as many times as you need, Suga-san. Please don’t run away. I’m here with you, so please don’t run away.”

Sugawara looks at Tobio levelly in the eye. At dawn, Tobio wakes up to a text from an unknown number that says, _Sorry_ , and he knows right there and then, that Sugawara is gone.

 

 

The next time Tobio passes through that door in the building, he turns his chin upwards and raises his gaze, and manages a nod at Kindaichi. Kindaichi’s eyebrows furrow, and he does not nod back.

**Author's Note:**

> in no particular order: 2pm - a.d.t.o.y., mino - body, day6 - i wait, fei - fantasy, claude debussy - clair de lune, code kunst - fire water, coldplay - hypnotised


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